ABSTRACT
In recent years a growing body of empirical work has helped develop our understandings of masculinities and femininities in education, physical education and school sports contexts (see for example, De Knop et al., 1996; Tsolidis, 1996; Salisbury and Jackson, 1998; Wright, 1997; Hickey et al., 1998; Ennis, 1999; Hargreaves, 2000). However, to date, rather less of this empirical work has considered the nature of gendered positions of Physical Education teachers themselves (see Evans et al., 1996; Brown, 1999). In this chapter we consider some of the insights that are emerging from two studies that focus on the social significance of gendered physical education teacher identity. We present a view of teachers that acknowledges them not merely as the products of a brief period of initial teacher education, but as knowing subjects with lives and identities already strongly shaped by the time they enter the profession (Tabachnick et al., 1984; Templin and Schempp, 1989; Grenfell and James, 1998). Our perspective also positions physical education teachers as key intermediaries in the social construction and transmission of what counts as ‘gender legitimate’ knowledge dispositions and practices. As such they can be considered as ‘living links’ (Brown, 1999) between generations of encultured gendered practice in the profession. We contend that a better understanding of this process of enculturation is crucial if we are to move towards more gender inclusive futures in physical education.
